What happens to Canon as Adobe moves Photoshop to Cloud Subscription?

[marcfs]

Bob,

How will Adobe's new subscription only based Photoshop impact Canon?
Do you anticipate alternatives to Photoshop will materialize or will photographers move to the cloud and its painful never ending subscription.

Although LR will still be available to own, it is likely it too will shift to "cloud only" subscription plan in a few years.
Do you see any potential companies moving in to fill Adobe's change of course?
What are your predictions?

Marc
 

[Bob Atkins]

Beats me! I don't use PhotoShop or Lightroom, so I'm pretty much immune to whatever Adobe does. I shouldn't think Canon care much either. Photoshop is certainly not the only game in town.

What I use most of the time is Canon's DPP RAW converter, which is pretty good. Canon keep adding features (slowly) and it's regularly updated to support new Canon cameras (any you don't have to pay for it or the updates!). It does pretty much everything I need in a RAW converter

When it comes to image editing I'm still using JASC Paint Shop Pro v.9. That's the last version developed by JASC before Corel bought them out and started messing with it adding "features" you don't need and dumbing it down.

There's also GIMP, which is free and is under continuous development. It's getting better and easier to use with each new version.

As a Lightroom alternative there's the free open source  DigiKam from  http://www.digikam.org/

I've also seen recommendations for Hasselblad Phocus, another free application.

RawTherapee is also a good RAW converter, though I've found it to be a bit unstable on my system.

It's been tough to compete with PhotoShop, despite the outragous price and need for regular expensive updates. I'm not sure Adobe moving to the cloud is going to make it easier for competitors. I doubt that Canon will get into the serious software business, though if you ask them, they say that DPP already is serious software.

[KeithB]

Are you sure Lightroom is not included? it is listed here as "included":
http://www.adobe.com/products/creativecloud/tools-and-services.html

[bmpress]

Perhaps one should ask "What happens to Adobe when they move to the cloud"? For $50/month which is $600/year, one can dump Adobe and have $6,000 to spend on equipment, paper, inks, etc. over the next ten years. Although I can afford to pay Adobe, I have decided that they can stick it up their computers..... Maybe, if I was earning my living off of photography, but certainly not as an retired amateur. So it's bye-bye Adobe for moi.

[Bob Atkins]

Anyone looking for an alternative to Photoshop could do a lot worse than take a look at Paint Shop Pro. It's now up to version X5 and the price is around $50. That's $50, not $500.

Paint Shop Pro X5

You might think that's way too cheap to be any good, but you'd be wrong.

PSP was developed by JASC and was an excellent, fast, fully featured image editor up to version 9. Then Corel bought out JASC and have release versions through X5. Corel really haven't improved on the core of PSP 9 but they have added a whole bunch of automatic features, cataloging, help files etc. which have tended to "dumb" it down a bit and slow it down as well as complicate the interface and make it harder for first timers to figure out how to use it, but the old PSP9 is in there too, they've just masked over it with so many extra bloatware "features".

The interface isn't all that different from Photoshop either. X5 can import and convert RAW files in most formats, though the RAW conversion options are fairly basic and if you're at all serious about RAW conversions you'd be way better off using Canon's DPP software for the initial conversion to JPEG (or TIFF).

My primary editor is JASC's PSP version 9. I don't like the added complexity of the newer versions but for $50 you can't go far wrong with it

[klindup]

I will certainly not be moving to the Photoshop Cloud.  I paid a lot for CS4 and still use it.  My only problem is that it cannot handle RAW files from my 60D.  I now use DPP to convert from RAW to TIFF and let Photoshop work on TIFF files.  Given that Canon are the only folks who actually have the spec for their RAW files that is probably the right way to go.  My understanding is that Adobe have to reverse engineer RAW files to create  their RAW converters.
Ken

[Johnny]

I remember JASC. They were popular back then.

I am still on CS3, and I intend to be there for a long, long time. It has tons of features. Actually, working on TIFF files is almost as flexible as working on raw files. I have still to run into "restrictions" when doing heavy manipulations on 16-bit TIFF`s.

I do not think Canon are to concerned about the future of Photoshop. They deliver a free software package and leave the rest to the customers.

Speaking about Canon and DPP... if we compare DPP to other free programs that comes bundled with your camera I think DPP is lagging behind. Fuji and Pentax has software from Silkypix that has lots of features. DPP appears stripped in comparison. I have been emailing Canon voicing my complain but I do not think they care much. :-)  I hope more customers will call/email Canon and complain. Dissatisfied customers are hard to ignore if there are enough of them.

Photoshop Lightroom is a nice piece of software and upgrade pricing is now sensible compared to the earlier versions. The not so good news is they more or less force you to upgrade if you get a new computer and a new OS.

Well, maybe we should just dig in to Paint Shop Pro at some point and support the development?

Other converters/programs are DXO Optics and Capture One. I have tested them in the past and they are both good. I am not sure about the current price.

My strategy will be to stick to CS3 as long as my OS support it. If/when my OS does no longer support CS3 I will have to consider if upgrading to another OS is necessary.

[Bob Atkins]

What do you feel is lacking in DPP?

I look on it as a RAW converter, not an image editor. I see it as something for easily converting a RAW file to JPEG (or TIFF) with the incidental ability to do some minor editing such as cropping, rotating etc. That's all I want it to do. I don't expect it to be a mini version of Photoshop.

It does the RAW conversion very well. It can work on single image or batches of images. The same correction can be applied to any number of images in a batch process if you need to make the same correction to a whole bunch of images (e.g. if you had white balance set wrong or if you had exposure compensation set wrong).

I've also used RawTherapee, which is very powerful and flexible, but more complex to use and slower than DPP (not to mention being less stable on a 32-bit system and being a real memory hog). I've used Silkypix which I didn't find to be any better then DPP and it ran slower.

Since Corel took over Paint Shop Pro it's just gotten bigger and less focused. It tries to do everything instead of concentrating on being the best image editor. That's the Corel influence. They shut down JASC and closed their offices, so JASC no longer exists, even within Corel.

GIMP is probably the main competitor for Photoshop, but being open source and non-commercial it develops slowly and doesn't always have the best user interface.

There's an excellent Lightroom competitor called DarkTable. Unfortunately it only runs on Linux, though there is now a port to the Mac. It's unlikely to be ported to Windows because it's open source and the main developer just doesn't have the resources (or the inclination) to maintain it in versions for multiple operating systems. Working with the Windows community is a much bigger headache than working with the Linux community and getting things to work with all the various flavors and combinations of Windows is just too much work.

[Johnny]

I look on it as a RAW converter, not an image editor.

I guess you are spot on, Bob. I ( and probably many others ) want more editing functions. For me it is about convenience. I want to do a little more basic adjustments like levels adjustments, better highlight recovery etc. I can do all that in Photoshop but prefer working on the raw file, if I can choose, and not switching from one program to another. I would not mind having some of the options Silkypix offers but I am not sure it is going to happen.

ZoomBrowser, which I think is now discontinued, had some nice functions like levels, curves adjustments, unsharp mask etc.

I tried RawTherapee but it is to complex.

How long is it since JASC made software? I had a program called Draw, or Drawing...don`t remember. Must have been 1995 or something.

[Bob Atkins]

But DPP using RAW files has highlight recovery, unsharp mask and curve adjustments (for each color channel or global), along with the usual adjustments of contrast, saturation, black level, white level, color tone, noise reduction etc. It also has cloning (stamp tool), compositing and HDR as well as image rotation and cropping. Its editing ability on JPEG files is more limited.

I guess the limiting factor when using DPP for image editing is that all adjustments are global, i.e. there is no masking so you can't apply corrections to selected parts of an image.

Otherwise, if your DPP is missing the above mentioned features, it's time to update it to the latest version. I'm running version 3.13.0.1

JASC was acquired by Corel in 2004. In 2007 they closed down the JASC offices and essentially killed off the company.

[retiredPhil]

Since Corel's Paintshop was brought up, I thought I'd wade in. First, my disclaimer, I am not affiliated with Corel in any way other than as a customer.

I didn't have the pleasure of JASC's Paintshop, but did buy into Corel Paintshop at level X2. Since it does everything I want from a photo editor, I have stuck with it through version X5.

First, the RAW processing and conversion.  They seem to have the Codecs for all or nearly all raw formats. They provide several processing options for the raw file:
Sliders for Brightness, Saturation, and Shadow
White balance tools including a Scenario selection, such as Daylight, Tungsten, etc. Also sliders to set temperature and tint.
A highlight recovery tool with 4 options. I've found this one especially handy.
A reduce noise slider, that I've never used.

Once you've picked your poison, the conversion is quick (about a second). You can then seamlessly proceed with the editing. I agree that there are an enormous number of options to the editing, and I've never used all of them, but I am rarely disappointed when I go looking for some toy to play with my photos.

I often recommend Corel's Paintshop Pro to anyone who asks.